A Treatise on the Law, Proceedings, and Usage of Parliament

ought to be confirmed, the bill, if amended, is ordered for consideration—or, if not amended, for third reading and is sent in due course to the second house.

If no hostile petition is presented—or if a petition be Procedure presented but a motion for a joint committee is either

withow in first not made or not carried 2—the confirming bill in the bills to

confirm house in which it originates is deemed to have passed order on

which an the stage of committee. The order for its consideration in there is made immediately after its second reading (or after been held,

when no any unsuccessful inotion for a joint committee 3), and after joint com

mittee is being considered and read the third time the bill is sent to appointed. the second house.

The procedure in the second house upon a bill to con- Procedure firm any order upon which an inquiry has been held may in second be very shortly stated. After being brought from the upon bills

to confirm house in which it originates, it is read the first time and order on second time. Between these two stages no such length of time need intervene as is necessary in the first house, been held. as it is not competent for parties to present a petition against an order when the confirming bill reaches the second house, nor, consequently, for a member to move that it should be referred to a joint committee. In the second house the stage of committee is deemed to have been passed in the case of every bill confirming any order on which an inquiry has been held.

If in the first house no motion for a joint committee has been carried, the bill in the second house, after being read a second time, is ordered to be considered as if reported by a committee, and proceeds to its third reading in the ordinary manner.?

If, on a motion made and carried in the first house, the bill has been referred to a joint committee, it is

as

Sec. 9; and Note by Mr. Speaker. 10th Aug., 1904.

Ib.; and cf. 157 C. J. 340-1. 363 369. 378 (Aberdeen, &c., Bill); &c.

3 Ib.

156 C. J. 222. 225.

* Sec. 9 (4); 231; &c.

deemed, when in the second house, to have passed the Chapter

XXXI. stage of committee ;1 and should it be a bill that has originated in the Lords, it is not only deemed, when in the Commons, to have passed the committee stage in the latter house, but, immediately after its second reading there, the order for the third reading is made.?

It may be noted that in the contingency just mentioned—that is to say, where a bill, for the confirmation of an order upon which there has been an inquiry, originates in the Lords and is there referred to a joint committee-no opportunity is provided for amending it (except verbally) during its subsequent passage through the Commons, the only stages through which it passes in the latter house being those of first, second, and third reading. 8

i Standing order 254 (H. C.), 186 bill on the third reading," standing (H. L.).

order (Public Business), No. 42 of 2 Standing order 254.

House of Commons; supra, p. 3. "No amendments, not being 501. merely verbal, shall be made to any

Chapter

CHAPTER XXXII. XXXII. Table of LOCAL AND PERSONAL, AND PRIVATE, ACTS OF PARLIAMENT. Contents. See Intro- After they have received the royal assent," private bills Private duction.

Ang bills, when are divided into three classes of Acts: (1) Local and passed, personal, declared public; (2) Private, printed by the

divided

ve into three King's printers ; and (3) Private, not printed.

classes of

Acts. (1) With the exception of any Inclosure, or Inclosure and (1) Local Drainage Acts, all the bills which by standing order No. 1 and per..

sonal Acts. (of both houses) are divided into the two classes so frequently referred to, are included, when passed, in the category of local and personal Acts. Until 1798 such Printed in Acts were printed with the other statutes of the year,” and Co were not distinguishable from public Acts except by the wh character of their enactments; but since 1798 they have cludes

Public been distinguished and printed in the separate collection Acts of a known as “Local and Personal Acts.” And since 1868, as already mentioned (supra, p. 685), a considerable class of Acts, previously included in the collection of public general Acts, have also been printed among the local and personal Acts. They are Acts which, though passed as public bills, are local in their character, and Acts for the confirmation of Provisional Orders and of Orders under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act.4

eparate llection

local

character.'

i Cf. supra, pp. 510-513.

? They are eliminated from the revised editions of the statutes periodically issued by the Statute Law Revision Committee.

3 This change was introduced with a view to reduce the inconvenient bulk of the annual volume of the Public General Acts, and has

been carried out as far as circum. stances admit.

These acts are specially dis- tinguished both in the volumes of the Local and Personal Acts among which they are included, and also in the Table of Local Acts appended to the annual volume of Public General Acts.

to be

public

Acts.

Declared Every local and personal Act passed before the year Chapter 1851 contained a clause declaring that it “shall be a

XXXII. public Act, and shall be judicially taken notice of as such."1 But by Lord Brougham's Act of 1850, for shortening the language of Acts of Parliament, the insertion of this “public” or “evidence" clause in every local and personal Act was rendered unnecessary by a general enactment, which is now contained in the Interpretation Act of 1889,- and which declares that every Act, unless it contains an express provision to the contrary, shall be a public Act and shall be judicially taken notice

of as such. (2) Private (2) From 1798 to 1815 the private Acts, not declared Acts, printed. public, were not printed by the King's printers, and could

only be given in evidence by obtaining authenticated copies from the statute rolls in the Parliament Office. But since 1815, the greater part of such private Acts have been printed by the King's printers, and have contained a clause declaring that a copy so printed “shall be admitted as evidence thereof by all judges, justices, and others ;” and since 1851 this "evidence clause " has been retained, with the addition of an enactment that the “Act shall not be deemed a public Act.” These Acts consist almost ex- clusively of Estate Acts and of any Inclosure, or Inclosure and Drainage, Acts.3

1 The practice of declaring par. ticular Acts of a private nature to be “ public Acts" commenced in the reign of William and Mary, and was soon extended to nearly all private Acts by which felonies were created, penalties inflicted, or tolls imposed (cf. Spiller's Index to the Statutes). In one or two special cases, occurring between 1798 and 1851, local and personal Acts, which were of an unusually public character, not only contained the ordinary "pub. lic" clause, but were printed among the public general Acts (Manchester Stipendiary Magistrates Acts, 53 Geo. III. c. 72; 7 & 8

3 A list of these "private Acts, printed by the King's printers, and whereof the printed copies may be given in evidence," appears in the “Table of the Titles of the Local and Private Acts passed during the Session,” which is appended to the annual volume of the Public General Acts. Cf., e.g., the volume of 1899 (62 & 63 Vict.), p. 231,

(3) The last class of Acts are those which still remain (3) Private

Acts, not unprinted: they consist of name, naturalization, divorce, printed. and other strictly personal Acts.

1 A list of these "private Acts, not printed” appears in the table mentioned, supra, p. 910, in note 3.

Cf., e.g., the volume of Public General Acts of 1899 (62 & 63 Vict.), p. 232.